IRELAND'S DISCONTENT

Otago Witness, Issue 2840, 19 August 1908, Page 15

IRELAND'S DISCONTENT

By J. Coubtenat Yobke. It must surely be unique in the luetory ttf nations to find a country conquered 700 years ago and still not reconciled to her lot. Is it not eugge&tive of something even more" than blundering, in England' 6 treatment of Ireland, when there is etill to be fount! in the iheart of the Irish a hatred of British rule? Wherever there is discontent the causes of it are either imaginary or real, and no student of history can charge the people of Ireland with against grievances that did not exist. With" the idea of converting the people, Queen Elizabeth thought it necessary to take some action, and although the proportion of Catholics to Protestants at that time would be about eight or nine to ©ne^ — that is to say, there would be some.thing like eight or nine times more people professing the Koman Catholic faith than there were Protestants, — Queen Elizabeth established in Ireland the Irish Episcopal Church of England, and it was. made a law of the land that everyone owning pro--perty — be he Catholic or Proteetant-^-had) to pay a tax . in. support of his church, against which the people naturally rebelled, very many refusing to pay it. •Members of Parliament there were at that 4dme who raised their voices against what ■was bo clearly unjust and cruel, but they were stifled • by numbers, and the tithe was collected at the point of the bayonet land £h4 cosi of many lives. It must have been the thought- of these things that brought Mr Gladstone upon ifche scene, and' caused !him to make up his ahind that, even if his political life were ibrought to a close by the effort, the State Church in Ireland must come to an end. An appeal was made to the country, and ifche English people «ent Mr Gladstone back to Parliament, telling him by their votes ffchat they would support him in what he intended to do.

It will be seen that the fact of there Tjeing a Sate Church in England was an argument against guch a church in Ireland, .in -England the Protestant faith •was professed by the vast majority of the ipeople, and on. the throne none but a ■(Protestant Sovereign could reign. In Ireiand the State Church was, in the words of an orator of that time, " like an exotic (brought from a fax country, kept alSve with rthe greatest difficulty and at great expense in an tingenial climate and an. ungrateful coil.".

The ascendancy of a church whioh was against the wishes of nearly the whole of •Ireland was thus done away with ; the connection between it and the State was cut ; the props that were underneath it irere withdrawn, and. it was allowed to -subside into that position to which the jsma.il number of its adherents entitled it. ilAlthough -bhe 1 State Church question was an ever painful thorn in the side of Ireland, the land question was by far the greater

"jjjuepenty of a country in which jr^Ui, of the people gain their living from Tthe soil depends upon the state of its land Uawe, and these ruling in Ireland from the ifcime of tihe conquest of the country had been cruel and oppressive to the toiler — indeed, for many long years the man working upon the soil had Taeen as the Russian ■serf, and very little removedi from the leveT of the African slave. He was a 6lave in the sense that he had no power 'to claim the fruits of his labour, and was iin daily dread of finding himself and his ibelongmgs turned upon the roadside — Ihomeless. The invaders simply took possession of everything, and the conqueror divided the land amongst the bravest of his soldiers; but "then we must remember that what nations dlare not do now was commonly done in those days. The people of Ireland were, moreover, crushed by a cruel penal code, -which lasted nearly a century. Afterwards they were allowed to occupy the land as lenante-at-will, which eimply meant that the landlord said to the would-be tenant : " You may come upon the land, cind spend your toil upon it ; you may labour hard to make it fruitful, fence it, and buildi your hut or cottage upon it, but at my bidding, at the uplifting of my hand, out you go, without warning and without recompense." It was the shame of this system that touched Mr Gladstone's iheart, as he made hLs appeal to the English people to give him power to alter this state of things, # so that the povertystricken people nuight ha"ye the burden of their lives made lighter. Under these conditions, could it be expected that a spirit of industry and thrift- would be developed amongst the people? They were called lazy and indolent because .they had no heart in their work, knowing that the fruits of their labour belonged to the landlord.

In one province of Ireland a better condition of things existed, as in Ulster what was known as the tenant-right system prevailed. This meant that the tenant had a right to hold possession of his farm a 6 long as lie paid the rent, and upon leaving could claim, compensation for improvements ; also, that he had the power to sefl the goodwill for what it would fetch in the market. Mr Gladstone succeeded in spreading the tenant-right system all over Ireland. Wherever this system prevailed there was industry, there was prosperity ; and where it did not prevail was the home of poverty, idleness, discontent, and crime.

More has been done in recent years for the agricultural classes of Ireland, but we $annot wipe out the wrongs of centuries •with one stroke of the pen. Generation after generation of Irisnmen. have been tborn to a life of poverty and suffering, so that at last something like natural antipathy to their oppressors began to show itself throughout the country. It is a corajnon experience with individuals, as with Communities and nations, that grief or revenge or sorrow that is nursed is intensified by the imagination until the whole being is so taken possession of by the one .idea of oppression that the* power of reason Zis Jost^-and violence aud bloodshed take

its place. We all wish happiness, prosperity, and peace- to Ireland ; from her soil !have- sprung some of the Brightest intellects the world lias ever known, and in times of trouble her sons have more than once saved from disaster the honour of Britain.

The writer likes to think that some day | not far distant she will be at peace with i herself and all mankind, and heartily enj dorses the opinion expressed by the Rev. Dr Nisbet, in his deservedly popular lecture delivered in Oamaru a week or two back, when he 6aid : " The well-being of this vast empire may in the near future demand that a separate Parliament be established in England, Ireland, and Scotland for the management and direction of the domestic affaire of each of these countries ; and that an Imperial Parliament, to which shall be invited representatives from every part of our possessions, shall meet in London to discuss from time to "time tihe general policy of the Empire."